Unverified Voracity Tinkers (Read: Breaks) Stuff

Correction. I misattributed the source of the coaching clinic notes posted last week. Their origin is Go Blue Michigan Wolverine (the blog, not the Scout site). Apologies to ERoc & co.

Fixes. Your blog fixes/all-natural-enhancements for the week:

7/9/2008:

• Added "Hot" tab for message board.
• Fixed IE6 bug where content would end up pushed down the page.
• leaderboard ad centered.
• Killed the "ad takeover bug" by removing the code that delayed ad loading until end of page.
• Added "MGoElsewhere" block with useful links to the Fanhouse, Facebook, and MGo.licio.us, as some had requested their return.
• Deleted all accounts that had never been logged in and disabled email validation temporarily.

If you had problems registering and never logged in, you can take another shot at it, as I've cleared out all the old usernames and temporarily shut down the email registration that didn't tell you it was coming and sometimes never showed up. You should be able to pick a password.

The ad takeover bug got way worse yesterday morning when I committed a change that was working on my local install of Drupal, saw it had severely broken the site, and immediately lost internet connectivity until around 11 AM the next day. Which was awesome. I've pulled the clever change I made that had the ads load last and then moved them into their correct locations, and that's probably not coming back... it's just impossible to debug when I don't know what elements the javascript will provide me, and the cost of not debugging -- whitescreens with only ads on them -- is incredibly steep.

Another note: the "popular" and "hot" tabs for both diaries and message board only display posts from the last week.

My next task is figuring out why anonymous comments aren't displaying. As always, check the "crude bug tracking" page if you've got an issue, and comment there or email.

I got a lot of suggestions for the "Diaries" rename but none of them seemed very usable. Still looking.

Where will I get $5 shirts that say "Michigen" now? If thought selling six t-shirts for ten dollars was not a particularly good business model, congratulations! You're now the proud owner of a Notre Dame MBA. Also, Steve and Barry's is about to die:

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Steve & Barry's is considering closing more than 100 stores across the country and has fallen behind in payments to builders, suppliers and advertisers. The chain is seeking $40 million in private financing to avoid filing for bankruptcy. ...

Aside from its bankruptcy troubles, the retailer took a hit when the University chose not to renew its licensing contract with 4004 Inc., the apparel company that supplies Steve & Barry's. Kristen Ablauf, the University's director of licensing, said the decision was made because of "concerns with their ability to fulfill their requirements of their license agreements."

IE: they ain't gonna pay us. Or, apparently, the Daily, which is owed over twenty grand by Steve & Barry's.

This story reads like this to me: blah blah blah. blah. World's most ridiculous liquidation sale! What are they going to offer? Ten shirts for ten dollars? All "leather" jackets come with a free barrel of oil? Buy a hat and get Steve or Barry's first-born free?

(Via MSC, and a preemptive update: Steve and Barry's is screwed.)

Over Wisconsin. WolverineHistorian has compiled the 1998 Wisconsin game:

You write about sports for a living. You've obviously made some serious mistakes in life. Varsity Blue is prompted to reflect on what Kevin Grady's punishment will be for blowing Ken-yon Rambo's GPA (oh ten-year-old irrelevant-diss snap!) by yet another cranky sports guy calling for a beheading:

The proposals range from doing nothing (as Ohio State fans think will happen, for some reason), to kicking Grady off the team. Jeff Chaney, a columnist for the Grand Rapids Press, said today on the radio that he thinks the latter is the most appropriate and likely outcome. Naturally, I disagree.




The logic Chaney followed was this: Grady is a third-teamer, and therefore must serve as an example to the rest of the team.

Attention, sports columnists of Michigan: there are options between doing nothing and kicking a guy off the team. If you were judged so harshly for the times in your life you did something incredibly stupid, parts of your anatomy would be speeding past Mars at a significant fraction of the speed of light.

There will no doubt be similar caterwauling from men of Chaney's ilk when Grady is not booted, but wouldn't Michigan be better off with an open scholarship than a disappointing running back who'll probably be third-string at best this fall? Michigan has five other running backs, all of whom have either shown better on the field or fit better in the offense. Grady is unlikely to contribute at all; keeping on the team is an act of mercy.

Shades of gray exist, people!

Look, see? Chengelis provides some shades of gray in her piece.

Etc.: Got $5 million burning a hole in your pocket? Want a tower? In the diaries, GSimmons says Michigan will be impervious to weather and Dex explores the wonders of Kevin Grady's Big Adventure. Worth it just for the special guest star's fake name. Also: do you have a widescreen monitor? Embiggen your MGoExperience here.